Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Encore Pattern Review: McCall's 5273 pants

Since making the red skinny pants (see this post) and tweaking the pattern to my liking, I thought I would make another pair of skinny pants with the same pattern in another stash fabric. This time I chose a baby blue stretch cotton that I bought quite a few years ago. I don't remember if I bought it for myself or for the kids. Anyway, I had enough yardage so I just cut and sewed the pants quickly. The fabric doesn't have as much stretch as the red stretch cotton so the fit is a bit loser on me. I added back pockets again and added a zig-zag design to the pockets to jazz it up a bit.

For these pants, I decided to make the Reitman style waistband (no closure pull on waistband). I refashioned another pair of me-made pants a few years back with this style of waist band and was happy with it (See this post) so I thought I'd try it again with these pants. I used the waistband pattern piece as a guide to draft a front and a back waistband. I used a 3/4 inch elastic and zig-zagged it into the seam allowance. I know others had tried to replicate the Reitman style waistband with 1/4 inch clear elastics but I really feel that I need the thick heavy waistband to hold back my tummy rolls so that the waistband doesn't roll over.

I'm pretty happy with these pants and I think I can probably get away with wearing these pastel coloured pants in the spring and summer days (with an untucked top). I'm also happy that I have tweaked this pattern enough that I can sewed these pants up easily and quickly.